Mr. Robbins, You're Trying to Seduce Me, Aren't You?

One of the nifty things about living in Santa Monica, California is watching Hollywood celebrities mince about Main Street, in their half-hearted attempt to remain incognito. In the past 3 months alone, I’ve been treated to Diane Lane and Josh Brolin in a heated tiff outside our inedible raw food joint, Helen Hunt furtively picking a boogie while idling in her Prius – and Carl Weathers. Carl Weathers, EVERYWHERE.

But arguably the most satisfying sighting in my nearly 16 years by the beach, happened just last week in the back of a corner health food market called One Life. I stopped in for a tuna on whole wheat, queuing directly behind the legendary Tim Robbins in some stretchy bike shorts, a wool skull cap and open-toed sandals. So COOL!

However, Tim seemed distracted. He kept looking towards the front of the store where an exotically stunning woman was shopping, next to who appeared to be her boyfriend. Mind you, I was 3 feet from Timmy and he’s a good 6 foot 5, so he had no trouble looking directly over me, clearly ogling the girl and making that “woo” face consistent with a fella on the prowl. ( In hindsight, I’m pretty sure he was trying for one of those camaraderie moments with me, where complete strangers bond over how hot a chick is. But I wasn’t 100% sure, so I didn’t engage).

After grabbing his food, he headed towards the check out line and paid. But before he left, he noticed that the dude the hotty came in with had walked out. In an instant Timmy doubled back and B-lined for the chick, who now was only a couple of feet from where I was waiting. Man, she smelled great. Timbo with a huge grin, gallantly says hello in that soft, unmistakable, ”Andy Dufresne the day before he busts out of Shawshank Prison’, kinda way. He asks where she’s from. It’s Italy. He asks if she’s single. She says no. He asks if she’s with her boyfriend. She says yes. He asks if he can have her phone number. She says no. He asks if she’d like to have coffee, she says no. He says OK, nice meeting you and walks away. He stops. He comes back. He asks if she’d take his phone number, she says no. He basically empties his entire ‘I’m Tim Robbins’ quiver of arrows without so much as grazing the target. If only Morgan Freeman (who I saw eating a scone on Main Street about 2 months ago) was there to narrate!

So that seemed like a goodly amount of celebrity silliness for one afternoon, but it ended with an even bigger dollop of dumb. I walked outside just as Tim is mounting his 10-speed bike, while as if on cue, a stocky Mexican kid with a video camera starts asking questions. “Hey Tim, will you cook me a vegan omelet at your house?” Yep, it’s TMZ!

Tim peddles away, right past the Italian girl’s boyfriend. He now has the defeated look of a man who’s actually been tossed into solitary confinement by Bob Gunton.

Crap day for the Timinator. Fun day for me.

-ANONYMOUS